Roll Out The Barrel!

Update [2009-11-26]: *** This gig has been cancelled by the venue. Sorry. ***

Macaroni Penguins next gig is at The Barrel Inn, St Mary St., Thornbury on 28th November 2009. We'll be on from 9pm.

If things work out well we may be playing a couple of new songs at this gig.

This will be our first time playing at this venue, so please come along and support us!

"Macaroni Penguins: May Contain Nuts."

Snodfest 2009 Video

Macaroni Penguins are featured in the official Snodfest 2009 video.

There is video (but no audio) of Penguin induced crowd frenzy at 1:42 - 1:47 and there are stills of the band at 2:15 and 2:24.

"YouTube if you want to"

Snodfest 2009

Macaroni Penguins will be returning to the wilds of deepest, darkest Worcestershire to play at Upton Snodsbury Music Festival 2009 on Sunday, 19th September 2009 at Upton Snodsbury Park.

I understand we will be finishing off the festival again this year (or headlining as we like to think of it), and that the festival itself is due to close at 9:30 pm. So I would expect we will be playing from about 8:30 pm, but I will provide more details as soon as I get them. Or keep an eye on the festival's own website for updates (snodfest.com).

Update [2009-09-18]: Macaroni Penguins are scheduled to play from 9:10pm to 10:00pm.

Here we are playing at Snodfest 2008:

"Things will be great when you're... Upton"

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

The traditional festival/monsoon season is upon us, and Macaroni Penguins first engagement is to play at the 2009 Dursley Rugby Club Beer Festival on 6th June 2009. We are scheduled to be closing the festival (how could anyone follow us?) between 8:30pm and 11pm. Tickets are £5, see the web site for more details.

The current weather forecast for the area is, err, not particularly good, but I'm assured we will be playing under cover, so do come along, sample the beer, drown your sorrows and maybe yourself if the weather gets worse.

Also - if we can work out how to connect it all up - this gig will be the first outing for our new PA system, especially purchased to give Tim's bottom end a bit more oomph!

"Macaroni Penguins: 80% Entertainment by Volume."

It Was Fourteen Years Ago Today...

... Macaroni Penguins played their first ever gig, at Piggy's Birthday Party, in his house.

We had just acquired a drummer, Michelle, the previous day, but she declined to play with us at such short notice, so the four of us - Mark, Mike, Jim and Fred (our former keyboard player) - struggled through 11 songs backed by a TR-505 drum machine and a dodgy amp.

The songs played were:

1. Keep Your Hands To Yourself
2. Vampire Blues
3. Is She Really Going Out With Him?
4. Hard To Handle
5. So You Think You're In Love
6. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
7. Walking By Myself
8. R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.
9. Fearless Heart
10. Future's So Bright
11. Stepping Stone
    

Interestingly we recently played another 11 song set at Snodfest 2008 - due to time constraints - and that set had exactly no songs in common with our first ever set. Although having said that Stepping Stone is still our third most played song (after Another Girl, Another Planet and Make Me Smile) and still the song we traditionally end on, and another two songs (Hard To Handle and Future's So Bright) are among our top ten most played songs, although have been absent from recent sets. And one of the songs from this set (Fearless Heart) went so well that we have never played again. Ever.

But, things have moved on, 14 years and 92 gigs later we have lost a keyboard player and gained a drummer and a backing vocalist, lost a drummer and gained a different one, gained a lot more songs and lost a few as well, gained a lot of experience and lost a lot of nervousness.

Here's to 2009.

"But they're guaranteed to raise a smile"